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I clicked on it and saw only your second article. That's OK, I like this topic better. Briefly:

* All the justices have a far more substantial conflict of interest than whose kids work for whom: they are deciding the fate of who will probably select their next colleague, and their next leader (should Rehnquist retire).

* There is absolutely no indication that who these removed people would have voted for. There are definitely problems with it, and it needs to be fixed, but to make it a partisan thing is

Some of the items you mention were addressed in my notes, but the article was going on too long and I tightened it.

I'm at work, so I don't have the book handy, but Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy That Money Can Buy" is well worth reading. I suspect that fraud occurred, but it would be tough to prove without an actual inquiry.

As for the way the voters might have chosen to vote, while you would be correct if you meant that we cannot pinpoint how a particular individual would have voted, I think we can make some same assumptions about the trend of the voting. Specifically, the purge of the voting rolls was supposed to target felons. African American's comprise over 1/3 of the US prison population [usdoj.gov] , despite representing only about 13% of the total US population. Thus, a population that historically tends to vote for Democrats was disproportionately eliminated from Florida voter rolls. Incidentally, Palast reports estimates that over 50% of the names on the scrub list were African-American.

One might argue that it's not Katherine Harris' or Jeb Bush's fault that African Americans were over-represented in the scrub list, but they should have known the list was largely illegal. The Florida Supreme Court had already told Jeb Bush prior to the purge (twice, in fact), that he could not violate the "Full Faith and Credit" provision of the US Constitution. So, we're left with Katherine Harris ordering an illegal scrub list that disproportionately weeds out likely Democratic voters.

I'm really not sure what frustrates me more: the possibility that election fraud occurred, or that the most serious media attention given to this has been outside the US. I can't say for certain that anything illegal happened, but this is a hell of a lot more serious than a stain on a dress.

I think we can make some same assumptions about the trend of the voting

It depends on what the purpose of those assumptions are. For the purpose of discussion, sure. For making assertions about who "would have been elected," absolutely not.

And again, I know there were problems with the list. But it is something that happens a lot and was only reported because of the closeness of the election. I think the greater problem is the list itself, not who may or may not have gotten votes because of it, becaus

The purpose is exactly what I stated: we could safely make assumptions about the likely trend of voting.

To what end? That's what I don't see. If you are not trying to say Gore would have won, then what is the point? To say that this is evidence the Republicans did it with malice aforethought? That's quite a stretch.

Still, ask the average American about the voters who were removed from the Florida voter rolls. I think you'll get blank looks.

Our disagreements about issues like this seem pretty entrenched, but this is why I disabled comments on my original journal entry. I find it far too easy to get dragged into a discussion like this, but if I'm going to get into an extended debate with someone, I'd much prefer to do it in my LiveJournal or in the @political forum. On the other hand, if I feel that way, perhaps I shouldn't post the links in the first place:/